


Ere the River Runs Dry

by Argyle



Category: Fevre Dream - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Blood Drinking, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Master/Servant, Mind Control, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:03:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3415193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was nothing for it: Damon Julian would have his way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ere the River Runs Dry

Joshua York sensed Billy's approach long before the man's raw knuckles rapped on the cabin door. Moreover, he _smelled_ him. The sweat; and beneath: the blood.

"Rise and shine," Billy's contemptible voice followed. "Mister Julian would have words with you."

Joshua hesitated. What might happen if he refused this time? Billy could no more cause him permanent injury than any other human, and he'd dare not kill him. But then, Billy would call for Kurt and Raymond—or worse, Valerie, to draw him out. It was better to go to Damon without the others' eyes on him. That his people should again witness his failure was nigh unbearable—

And then he felt a niggling in his brain, a tug upon his spirit like some ghostly approximation of the red thirst. _Damon._ It sickened him to admit that the sentiment was futile: there was no way to refuse Damon Julian his oblation.

He opened the door to his stateroom and stepped out into the inky evening light. Billy leered at him. "Why Joshua," he said, "you look about as cheery as death himself."

"And you, Mister Tipton, look ten years in the grave," Joshua replied smoothly, pushing past, down the hall and beyond the grand staircase to the captain's cabin. He entered without knocking, but of course his presence was expected. Damon sat on the edge of the bed, smoking, his scarlet silk dressing gown open and pooled about his white thighs.

Despite himself, Joshua shivered. Damon's room – so recently _his own_ room – was lit by a single lamp, dim and green glass-shaded so that it seemed at once that they were under water, swallowed whole by the river. And Damon was smiling. With an exhalation of smoke he said, "Ah, dear Joshua. So kind of you to join me."

"Did I have a choice?"

Damon laughed. "No. Not if you are hungry, as I know you are, and you wish to keep yourself from throttling a valued member of our crew. Please…" He gestured to the desk, where an unmarked wine bottle and a glass filled to brimming had already been laid out. "Help yourself."

Joshua intended to slowly sip at the liquor, to buy himself time so that he might better analyze the situation – his books removed from the shelf and stacked away in a corner, his journals and newspaper clippings simply gone; and Damon, all but naked, unarmed, incalculably dangerous – but he found himself downing the lot in one long gulp, quite unable to stop himself once he'd begun. His hand shaking, he moved to refill the glass.

"No, Joshua. Not yet." Damon tossed his cigarette away, grinding it into the Turkish carpet with a bare heel. Joshua saw that the floor was pocked with a dozen or more burn marks of the same kind, and Christ, this, suddenly _this_ of all things—Not that Damon would have him again tonight. Bleed him. Not the rationing of his elixir, the state of near-starvation Damon kept him in. No. This, the casual affront to the _Fevre Dream_ — to Abner, though Abner was gone… This was what sent Joshua reeling.

He sprang forward, hands outstretched and fingers bent like a set of claws, falling onto Damon and sending them both tumbling back onto the bed. "Look at me, damn you. Look at me!"

This sent Damon into hysterics. His frame shook with the force of his laughter. "Oh, my very dearest," he panted, clasping at himself as if he might fall apart with the rich, abundant nonsense of it. Then he sucked in a deep breath and looked Joshua in the eye. He'd turned them both over to sit astride Joshua's waist, pinning him, his fists held fast to Joshua's wrists. "I do wish you wouldn't carry on so."

And Damon's eyes— His eyes were—

Joshua swallowed, caught in the whorls of amber and brown. Red. His breath slowed.

"Are you prepared to comply?" But Damon didn't need an answer. Joshua was still as Damon leaned forward to capture his mouth in a kiss. Then: "Would you like me to drink of you, beautiful Joshua?"

"…Yes."

And this was Hell. How easy it would be to simply slip away.

Damon used the long, sharp nail of his forefinger to flick away the pearl buttons on Joshua's shirt, parting the fabric as he went along. Then he grazed a cut down Joshua's chest. The blood began to clot almost immediately, but not before Damon had tasted it, licking it up like some beast at his prey. Which indeed is what he was.

When he leaned in for another kiss, it was Joshua who bridged the gap between them, bringing their mouths together in a violent clash of tooth and tongue, and how maddening and marvelous a thing it was to taste himself, his very lifeblood, on Damon's lips. He felt giddy. Lightheaded—like a boy drunk on apple wine.

"Oh, Joshua," Damon said, dragging his tongue over Joshua's jaw, pressing his mouth to the tender junction between shoulder and throat. "To think you meant to resist me."

"I didn't—"

Damon bit down. And he drank.

For a long moment, Joshua was aware of nothing but his own heartbeat. But no: there was Damon. The drum, the ancient rhythm of his blood, the primal mechanism which called out to Joshua, and to which Joshua could not help but reply. Damon's hand slid down Joshua's chest. Neatly, he undid the fastenings of Joshua's trousers and slipped his hand inside, wrapping his long fingers round Joshua's cock, working him to hardness. Joshua gasped and shifted, only to further expose his throat. _And this was Hell._

It was only another minute before he was spilling his release into Damon's palm.

"Please..."

Damon's answer came in a cool puff of breath against Joshua's throat: "You are young, Joshua. You have much to learn." Then he shifted back. He looked at his hand and, meeting Joshua's eye, delicately licked it clean.

His cheeks were flushed, filled out. He smiled.

Joshua's guts churned at the sight of him. Arousal. And then revulsion as something of his true self bobbed to the surface. "No… The devil take you, Damon. This cannot go on."

"Can't it?"

"Release me. Or kill me."

"What? And lose my favorite new friend?" Damon laughed and slid off the bed, crossing the room to refill Joshua's glass. And then: "Here. You'll want to keep your strength if you're to sup with us tonight. Toby has been working on a _special_ menu which I know you'll be loath to miss."

Joshua downed the liquor. "And if I refuse?"

"You won't. Now go: clean yourself up."

Damn it all, but Joshua did just that. He set out a white dinner jacket and combed his hair and wiped the dried blood from his skin, erasing the evidence of wounds that had long since healed.


End file.
